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When I find a dog, which I do quite often, I will post signs and "found" ads online. If I don't find the owner within a couple of days we go to the vet for vaccinations, deworming and spay/neuter and I find them a new home... or they stay with me if I can convince the DH.

I would never in a million years bring any animal to a shelter in my area. The kill rates are off the charts and improperly vaccinated animals will get sick in a heartbeat.

In the counties where I've lived in MI, the law states that you must notify AC. That makes sense to me given that most owners are going to call AC first. If the dog doesn't have tags or anything, my first call would be to notify AC, then sheriff/police, then local vets, etc.

A good horseman doesn't have to tell anyone...the horse already knows.

When I find a dog, which I do quite often, I will post signs and "found" ads online. If I don't find the owner within a couple of days we go to the vet for vaccinations, deworming and spay/neuter and I find them a new home... or they stay with me if I can convince the DH.

I would never in a million years bring any animal to a shelter in my area. The kill rates are off the charts and improperly vaccinated animals will get sick in a heartbeat.

Think how you would feel if your dog got out and someone else found it and kept it.

There are laws most every place about what you need to do with a found dog and most are to give notice.
You can't just claim the dog as yours because you found it.
I am surprised your vet is going on with any work on a stray you don't have legal possession of, other than in an emergency.

Our shelter gets notices of lost and found dogs all the time, I used to help there matching them where a match was probable.
If someone found a dog they wanted to keep, they could leave a deposit to hold the dog for several weeks if necessary.
Here right now turnover is three days, because getting 30 to 100 dogs a day, well, there is just so much you can do with that many.
About 20% find homes, the rest are euthanized after three days or whatever the holding period may be, as in someone interested waiting for clearance or quarantine for a bite case or other such.

Check with your animal control, to give notice and still keep the dog if no owner is found may be an option there also.

I would have to call AC because I have nowhere to put a stray dog, what with my two and the cat. We have a good animal control officer and they have a very well-maintained kennel. Also, frankly, I don't want to deal with posters and phone calls and everything else. My taxes pay for the AC guy's salary, so I say, use him.

I realize that I'm generalizing here, but as is often the case when I generalize, I don't care. ~ Dave Barry

But it begs the question: What is THE proper way to deal with a found dog? Does the protocol change if he's obviously neglected?

Unless you absolutely know for a fact that the most obvious local shelter euthanizes rapidly and unpredictably, you should take a stray to that shelter because that's where the owner will most likely look first. From what I've read, people tend to assume the worst very quickly after a pet disappears, so if they check every local shelter in the first few days and the pet is with a rescuer who's making phone calls and printing flyers - if the two never cross, the owner may give up before the flyers and phone calls make an impact on the physical area where the dog was found.

Don't get me wrong, I think the OP's vet office was nasty to imply she was doing something wrong - she was obviously jumping through hoops to locate the owners. I just have heard a few too many stories about people "taking in" strays and never trying to find the owners but immediately going into rescue mode. I'm leery of the idea of not placing the dog in the place everyone knows to look, the local pound.